May 2 2006
Theworld of wine is a confusing one. It’sscattered, fragmented, rife with history, personalities and politics—it includeseverything from farmer’s to gourmands, pundits, and a passionate populace; and its global.
Thereare weird names, weird uses of names, weird made up names—sometimes used todescribe where the wine is from, the wine itself, or, perhaps, how it tastes.
Nowonder it’s intimidating for newcomers.
I recently bought an Australian wine named Timbuktu BigBlock Red from World Market—a chain of house wares stores that also carries wine—usuallyWorld Market is a nice diversion because they buy nationally and offer adifferent selection than the local supermarkets and wine shops that all pick off thesame distributor scrap heap.
The wine itself wasn’tthat good. In fact, I thought it washorrible—astringent and flaccid. Sometimes when I feel strongly about something, I do a cross-check justto make sure I’m not being a fancy-pants about something that has merit. This blog reviews it and gives it a B ++, somaybe I just need to give it another try.
But,overall, I really didn’t care for this wine—didn’t care for it to the extentthat I, perhaps, drank 2 ozs of the bottle before sending it down thedrain. I do recycle bottles, so it wasn’ta complete loss.
Cometo find out later on that it’s a World Market exclusive—which means a graphicdesigner in the marketing department won the departmental label creation contestand they bought & blended some bulk wine to fill out a SKU in the $9.99slot.
Producedfrom South Australian Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Petite Verdot, Malbec andMerlot, this all new, five-speed red blend is no ordinary wine. Big Block Redis deep purple in the glass with a nose of blackberry and mulberry fruit, newleather, spice and a dash of wood. It’s very willing, able, and readyright now.
This fun wine is produced exclusively for World Market stores by the talentedteam at Galvanized Wine Garage of Australia. Winemaker Benjamin Riggs wasnominated for the 2005 Qantas "Winemaker of the Year" down under.
So, that’s thepreamble and context, but what’s mildly interesting related to my initial pointabout
how confusing wine is, is the fact that a Google search for “Wine +Timbuktu” yielded technical information on Linux. Linux, for all non-technical folks is best described here.
Apparently,there is a derivation of Linux called Wine that is essentially a compatibilitylayer to make Linux work with Microsoft Windows—probably a good and fair namesince wine is a nice social lubricant.
Tomake it even more exasperating, under Linux and under Wine is also a programcalled Timbuktu, which, If I’m not mistaken is some sort of applicationdatabase for Wine.
Confused? You betcha. Me, too. And, all of thisbecause I haven’t been doing any wine reviews on the site and wanted to rectifythat in a small way.
But,Timbuktu really is a place and while the Aussies co-opted the name for theirlabel wine, they really do drink wine in Timbuktu, located in West Africa. It’s called Palm wine and it’s made from thesap of the Palm tree—it’s a mild intoxicant and ferments in up to twohours. If interested, you can readabout it here.
My answer to all ofthis duplicitous wine-speak is to go to World Market, buy something allegedlyimported from West Africa, pop a cork on another bottle and give it a anothertry. I can usually find some clarityafter a glass or two, even if it is rot gut stuff.
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May 2 2006
German wine has me a bit fascinated—mostly because I intermittentlysee quirky, oddly compelling commercials for a German Riesling that features ofall things—a pint-sized German in madcap situations.
Interestingly, Tom atFermentation had a post a week or so ago calling –with slight elbow in the proverbialribs—Ohio the hotbed for Wine Bloggers. That might be true based on the quality quotient for the Buckeye stateand interesting blogs. And, anCincinnati, Ohio ad agency can also take credit for creating the “Little German”campaign for winery Schmitt Sohne. And,in a “slap-your-head, can it get any better” moment, the ad agency is in anarea of Cincinnati called “Over-the-Rhine.”
Thelittle German campaign employs a pint-sized man in lederhosen who isphotographed in various predicaments, along with double-edged slogans such as,"Grab a little German in the wine aisle" and "Put a littleGerman in the fridge."
Thecampaign is a hit, particularly with women. Atlanta-based Schmitt Sohne Inc.,the German wine maker’s U.S. distributor, reports a 24 percent sales increasesince the campaign began. The wine’s market share has climbed from 44 percentto 49 percent. That’s not the secret either.
Theweb site, for its part, plays the Little German schtick to great effect andincludes a fan club for those so inclined. You can check it out here.
Thereal reason for the post today, is actually not Little Germans, but the proudGerman tradition of May wine.
Maywine, used to celebrate May Days, has a slightly different meaning country bycountry, but generally May Days is a “people uprising” kind of event.
Maywine is also the drink that is used in the Pagan/Wiccan celebration called theBeltane Circle typically celebrated on May 1st. But, ahem, we’ll leave that for somebody else to explore. I’m pretty sure that in the days beforeGoogle, you wouldn’t have been able to figure that out by using the DeweyDecimal System.
Accordingto Wikipedia, May Wine or Maiwein is:
Maiwein(also known as May Wine and Waldmeisterbowle) is the name of a German winetraditionally drunk on the May Day holiday.
Thedrink is made by flavoring a German white wine with Waldmeister (woodruff), afragrant herb thatgrows in forests. Since woodruff is very slightly poisonous, some common senseshould be applied in its use; 3 g of woodruff per litre of maiwein arecompletely safe.
Insome recipes, carbonated water, sugar or sparklingwine is added to the mixture to create a punch.
Itis also produced in German culture regions of the UnitedStates.
MayWine Recipe
2bottles of dry white wine
2cups strawberry liqueor
5thin orange slices
and/or
1cup sliced strawberries
12sprigs of woodruff
1teaspoon sugar (more or less, as preferred)
Edibleflowers (to be added after all ingredients have
been mixed
together)
Directions
Soakthe dried woodruff overnight in the wine.
Addthe rest of the ingredients, stir with a wooden
spoon, and let it
steep for an hour or so.
Servevery cold, with edible flowers floating atop in
the punch bowl.
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May 1 2006
From Pages 10, 11, & 12 of the Preface to the book, The American Vine-Dresser’s Guide published in 1826--the first book in America on the cultivation of grapes and wine by John James Dufour.
The failure of the first plantation causeda relaxation among shareholders, and not only a great difficulty wasexperienced in collecting the subscribed money, but the subscription of allthe shares was never performed, so that all our stock was made use of, forpaying the hiring of (labor) and other hands, and we were never able topurchase a single share or even to pay for the land: then the whole burden ofthe establishment rested on our family, who kept good courage, for we had begunanew, with the Cape and Madeira grapes, of which we had so few at first, thatit required several years to have enough of them; although we used greatindustry to multiply them; thus we went on until 1806, when I was obliged to goback to Europe, and our family parted. My two young brothers, who triedto keep the place, found themselves too weak to support it; and one frostyspring having took all their crop; and knowing that those of the colony, whohad begun in 1802 on the borders of the Ohio, were successful & hadsuffered nothing by the frost, they abandoned the place to an American tenant,who supposed we had a bad title to the land, obtained a new warrant, and becameowner by a patent, & let all the vines go to destruction.
At my return, which was in 1816, an accountof the war which prevented my coming sooner, I found the vineyard grown upwith briars, and I had to have recourse to law, to have the intruder ejected.Now let us see the difference, if we had punctually followed the plan, andbegan first by the collection of the $8000, and the purchase of 5 families of(laborers) for five thousand dollars, we could then have had from 15 to 20head, big, and small, I could certainly have procured by our joint labor,enough to support us all, after the second year, besides planting as many vinesas we would have done; and although the first planting had failed, we wouldsurely, in 9 or 10 years, have at least 20 acres of bearing vines of the Capegrapes, which, at the average of 180 gallons per acre, as that is the producton the Ohio, would give about 15 gallons per share, besides paying what wascoming to me. The wine then fetched $2 per gallon, and the vineyard would havebeen yearly increasing. By this time, with only common good luck among theeslaves, there could be at least thirty able hands of both sexes, besides agreat many youngsters, with whom I could tend 100 acres of vineyards, besideraising enough for the support of all, at 180 gallons per acre, would give 85gallons per share, worth as many dollars besides my reserve: and the capitalstock would be worth about tenfold.
Those who doubt the aforesaid calculation,have only to come and see our vineyards and vintage on the Ohio, and calculatefor themselves. If by chance myopinion differs from others--or I should express some original ideas, I shallnot enter into contradictory arguments: as I do not pretend to infallibility, Isubmit all to the judgment of candid readers, who however are respectfullyrequested, to postpone, pronouncing, until experimental trials have beenconsulted, as well as the grand book of nature, from which most all I have tosay has been taken, for want of other books, and even, if I had them, among themany I have read on the culture of the vine, but few could be quoted, for nonehad the least idea of what a new country is. I had the loan of Chaptal and Adlum for a few days, and I own Rozier,Peechely and Coxe, to all of whom I have made some few references, of factsunknown to me before, or when I had to say the same thing. Peechely, an Englishauthor on the cultivation of vines, in hot houses in England, where they canget no good grapes out of doors, studied the vines by handling them himself,and not in books; and has made several remarks on their nature in England, as Ihave done in Switzerland and in America, the author I would have quoted often,had I his book it would be the OLIVER De Serre, who was with propriety calledby the French authors the father of agriculture; because, all those who havewritten after him, on that science, have chiefly been his copyists, but it ismore than ten years since I have seen his "Theatra"of agriculture: although it has been lately reprinted in its original oldFrench, by Lasterie, or was intendedto be reprinted, when I left Europe last.
J. J. DUFOUR.
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May 1 2006
I have a post on the Wine Sediments portion of the Well Fed Network this week.
There has been a great deal of media attention over the last few weeks about the VERY popular teen and twentysomething social networking site called myspace.com
Critics see it as a pandora’s box for the glamorization of youthful excess as well as a forum for unsavory adults to prey on kids.
I’m not sure how true either of those are outside of isolated incidents that are spun on the news--at the best myspace.com is no worse then the risk of dropping kids off at the mall, and at its worst its like having your kids go to a party at the cross town high school where names and faces are more foreign--but this is all online mind you. Parents and adults it seems can only filter youthfulness based on their own experiences and technology kind of throws a wrench into that one ...
But, what’s really interesting, and the facet that I loosely touch on is the fact that many twentysomethings set up their profile and list wine as as a part of their affinity groupings. And, secondarily, because of the way Gen. Y likes to be marketed to, myspace.com opens up an entirely new set of rules for wine marketers that, frankly, don’t get how the previous generation--Gen. X likes to be marketed to.
The coming wine boom proves to be a couple of things--great for the wine industry in terms of volume and consumption, but also interesting in that the rules are changing in an industry that hasn’t demonstrated itself to be terribly progressive.
Check out the post and let me know what you think.
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